PRAGUE, March 1 (Reuters) - A Czech opposition proposal to
clip the ability of powerful Finance Minister Andrej Babis to
own companies and to win public contracts has won unexpectedly
strong support in parliament and threatens to rattle the ruling
coalition.

Under parliamentary procedures, lawmakers could vote as
early as Friday on the public procurement bill, which would bar
companies at least 10-percent owned by a minister or other
high-ranking official from public tenders.

The draft bill is clearly targeted at Babis, the billionaire
head of the ANO movement, the most popular Czech political
party. Babis owns the Agrofert group, the Czech Republic's
biggest private employer which owns more than 200 companies
spanning chemicals, farming, food and media.

Babis has long insisted he would not abuse his position to
influence media content or government policies in order to
channel business or state subsidies for farming or biofuels
specifically towards his firms.

Another amendment, which may be voted on later this month,
would ban any minister from owning more than 40 percent of a
business, regardless of its participation in public tenders,
potentially forcing Babis to choose between his business
interests and politics.

The two amendments were proposed by an opposition deputy and
seemed to stand little chance of approval until a number of
deputies from Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka's Social Democrats
and the centrist Christian Democrats -- ANO's two coalition
partners -- said they would support the changes.

Babis said he was surprised by such support.

"If this bill passes by the votes of coalition members, that
will raise the question whether this coalition makes sense
anymore, because this did not bother either the socialists or
Christian Democrats in the beginning," news agency CTK quoted
Babis as saying.

Sobotka has spoken in favour of the bills. Christian
Democrat Chairman and Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Belobradek
said on Tuesday his party supported the amendments because it
wanted a "level playing field" for all.

Babis, 61, founded the ANO movement in 2011 and led it to a
close second place in the October 2013 parliamentary election on
promises to tackle widespread graft in politics.

ANO now leads the opinion polls, making Babis a candidate
for prime minister if an election were held now. The next
parliamentary election is due in the autumn of 2017.
(Reporting by Robert Muller; Editing by Gareth Jones)